ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2010) — ESA's Envisat satellite has been tracking the progression of the giant iceberg that calved from Greenland's Petermann glacier on 4 August 2010. A new animation shows that the iceberg, the largest in the northern hemisphere, is now entering Nares Strait -- a stretch of water that connects the Lincoln Sea and Arctic Ocean with Baffin Bay.

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The Petermann glacier in northern Greenland is one of the largest of the country's glaciers -- and until August it had a 70 km tongue of floating ice extending out into the sea. The glacier regularly advances towards the sea at about 1 km per year.

Earlier this year, satellite images revealed that several cracks had appeared. Envisat radar images showed that the ice tongue was still intact on 3 August but, on 4 August, a huge chunk had detached.

This iceberg is about 30 km long and 15 km wide at its foot and almost 7 km wide at its head, covering an area of around 245 sq km. By 22 August this giant mass of ice had been carried about 22 km from its birth place.